[links] Link salad is lost in time like tears in the rain

Asimov’s for April/May 2013 (3 of 3) — In which my novella “The Stars Do Not Lie” is held up as an example of bad fiction. (Honor is restored, however.) Proving once again that the story truly does belong to the reader.

The Telegraph on Sex — Cora Buhlert with a roundup on British commentary on literary sex scenes. Mmm, literature.

The Law of the Tongue — Humans have trouble honoring treaties with each other, what are the chances they’d respect a contract signed with another species? Pretty good … at least in one case. (Snurched from Daily Idioms, Annotated.)

Antiscience “Academic Freedom” Bill Dies in Kansas — I have no doubt these same state governments will continue to try to pass bills that curb our children from learning and blind them to the real world. And while they do so, that very same world is still warming up. And species are still evolving. And the Universe adds another few years to its already considerable 13.73 billion year age. That’s the way things are. Ah, conservatives. Stunting the minds of children everywhere in America.

What happened to Orson Scott Card? — Now there’s a furor from the right, that this is a left wing witch hunt against people who disagree with their agenda, to economically punish those who don’t toe some political line. I disagree quite strongly. This is not some freedom of speech thing, not some despicable and childish refusal to engage with those who disagree politically. I would defend to the death Card’s right to speak his beliefs, but the hell if I have to stock it on my shelves if I’m the owner of a comic book store. And the hell if I have to draw the panels into which those words are written if I’m an artist. Card has the right to speak, but so do all these other people. To my view, Card’s depth of bigotry crosses the line from the usual conservative irrationality into something much akin to mental illness. He would literally condemn people I love to death: this isn’t reasonable disagreement over an objectively debatable point, this is vile poison that gains undue traction and attention due to Card’s prominence. I feel very, very sorry for the misery Card lives with inside his own head that makes him think this way.

Honey, I shrunk the bigots — A new study released today, and summarized by the Washington Post, shows that opposition gay marriage is shrinking, and now generally resides in only three pockets of Americans: white evangelicals; old people; and uneducated whites. The rest are basically on our side. It’s nice to be on the right side of both morality and history. Maybe someday the GOP will catch up.

Medicaid program helped Will Weatherford’s family after all, he admits — Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford reversed course on Wednesday and said that health care provided for his brother was covered under Florida’s Medically Needy program, which is financed by Medicaid. So ends a mystery that developed a day earlier when Weatherford, R-Wesley Chapel, voiced opposition to expanding Medicaid in his opening day speech of the 2013 legislative session. I am reminded of Craig T. Nelson’s angry, moronic remark that “I’ve been on food stamps and welfare, did anybody help me out? No.” Ah, once again we bathe in the light of the justly famed intellectual consistency of conservatives.